1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for immobilizing a compound onto a column carrier. The present invention also relates to a method for producing a compound-immobilized carrier and an analysis apparatus using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of techniques in recent years, protein- or compound-immobilized carriers have been developed. Apparatuses for separating and analyzing proteins or compounds using these carriers have been developed.
For example, a method using a conventional polystyrene carrier described in Patent Document 1 involves introducing a sulfo group into polystyrene for immobilizing a protein onto a carrier.
Furthermore, Patent Document 2 discloses that a cyclic phenol sulfide is immobilized onto a carrier by physical absorption. A column for analyzing a metal ion is prepared by using the high affinity of the cyclic phenol sulfide for a metal ion.
Furthermore, Patent Document 3 discloses that a bipolarly charged compound is immobilized onto a carrier using physical adsorption based on hydrophobicity for analyzing a component contained in saliva.
Furthermore, Patent Document 4 discloses that a sulfo group is introduced into a carrier by the action of alkylsulfonic acid, and a zwitterionic non-aromatic group is immobilized onto the carrier by a covalent bond with the sulfo group.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-164285    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-098679    [Patent Document 3] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-72132    [Patent Document 4] National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2002-529714
However, the immobilization methods disclosed in these Patent Documents have some problems.
The problem of the immobilization method described in Patent Document 1 is that this immobilization method can immobilize proteins but it is not applicable to many compounds.
The problem of the immobilization methods described in Patent Documents 2 and 3 is that the immobilization methods are not applicable to many compounds. This is because not all compounds have a high physical affinity for the carrier and also because the physical adsorption mechanism using hydrophobicity is not always used. This is further because most commercially available conventional column carriers can only bind to a compound having amino, thiol, carboxyl, or hydroxy groups.
The second problem is that a group having a high affinity for a column carrier is sometimes difficult to introduce into a compound. For example, a well known method for directly attaching a “carboxyl group” to a compound uses a Grignard reagent. However, this method requires several steps and is complicated.
The method described in Patent Document 4 involves introducing a sulfo group into a conventional column carrier by reacting with alkylsulfonic acid and thereby modifying the properties of the carrier to have the ability to bind to an amino group, while modifying the properties of the carrier to form a zwitterionic non-aromatic group. However, this method of only the sulfo group does not solve the problems mentioned above. Moreover, this method is not applicable to those having no ability to bind to a zwitterionic non-aromatic group.
Thus, an object of the present invention is to provide a method for immobilizing, onto a column carrier, a compound having a sulfo group or a compound to which a sulfo group can be added.